a lion's mane. So we come back to the question,--if
the face is to be like a man's face, why is not the lion's mane to be
like a lion's mane? Well, because it can't be like a lion's mane without
too much trouble,--and inconvenience after that, and poor success, after
all. Too much trouble, in cutting the die into fine fringes and jags;
inconvenience after that,--because, though you can easily stamp cheeks
and foreheads smooth at a blow, you can't stamp projecting tresses fine
at a blow, whatever pains you take with your die.

So your Greek uses his common sense, wastes no time, uses no skill, and
says to you, "Here is beautifully set tresses, which I have carefully
designed and easily stamped. Enjoy them, and if you cannot understand
that they mean lion's mane, heaven mend your wits."

172. See, then, you have in this work well-founded knowledge, simple and
right aims, thorough mastery of handicraft, splendid invention in
arrangement, unerring common sense in treatment,--merits, these, I think,
exemplary enough to justify our tormenting you a little with Greek art.
But it has one merit more than these, the greatest of all. It always
means something worth saying. Not merely worth saying for that time
only, but for all time. What do you think this helmet of lion's hide is
always given to Hercules for? You can't suppose it means only that he
once killed a lion, and always carried its skin afterwards to show that
he had, as Indian sportsmen sent home stuffed rugs, with claws at the
corners, and a lump in the middle which one tumbles over every time one
stirs the fire. What was this Nemean Lion, whose spoils were evermore to
cover Hercules from the cold? Not merely a large specimen of Felis Leo,
ranging the fields of Nemea, be sure of that. This Nemean cub was one of
a bad litter. Born of Typhon and Echidna,--of the whirlwind and the
snake,--Cerberus his brother, the Hydra of Lerna his sister,--it must
have been difficult to get his hide off him. He had to be found in
darkness, too, and dealt upon without weapons, by grip at the throat--
arrows and club of no avail against him. What does all that mean?

173. It means that the Nemean Lion is the first great adversary of life,
whatever that may be--to Hercules, or to any of us, then or now. The
first monster we have to strangle, or be destroyed by, fighting in the
dark, and with none to help us, only Athena standing by to encourage with
her smile. Every man'